Gova

The declarative GUI framework for Go. Build native desktop apps for macOS, Windows, and Linux from a single Go codebase — typed components, reactive state, real platform dialogs, and one static binary. No JavaScript runtime, no embedded browser, no C++ toolchain to learn.

Status: pre-1.0. The API will shift before v1.0.0. Pin a tag in production.

package main

import . "github.com/nv404/gova"

var Counter = Define(func(s *Scope) View {
    count := State(s, 0)
    return VStack(
        Text(count.Format("Count: %d")),
        Button("+", func() { count.Update(func(n int) int { return n + 1 }) }),
        Button("-", func() { count.Update(func(n int) int { return n - 1 }) }),
    )
})

func main() { Run("Counter", Counter) }

Why Gova

• Components as structs. Views are plain Go structs with typed prop fields; defaults are zero values; composition is plain function calls. No magic property wrappers, no string keys, no hook-ordering rules.
• Explicit reactive scope. State, signals, and effects live on a Scope you can see. No hidden scheduler, no re-render surprises, no Rx, no Redux.
• Real native integrations where it matters. NSAlert, NSOpenPanel, NSSavePanel, and NSDockTile badge/progress/menu on macOS through cgo. Fyne fallbacks on Windows and Linux — same API everywhere.
• One static binary. go build produces a single executable. No JavaScript runtime, no embedded browser, no extra assets to bundle.
• Hot reload that actually reloads. gova dev watches Go files, rebuilds on save, and relaunches — with an opt-in PersistedState so UI state survives the reload.
• Built on Fyne, but Fyne stays internal. The public API is yours to rely on. We swap out renderer details without breaking your code.

At a glance

Measured on macOS arm64 with Go 1.26.2. Numbers will vary by platform and feature set.

Install

go get github.com/nv404/gova@latest

Optional CLI for dev / build / run:

go install github.com/nv404/gova/cmd/gova@latest
gova dev ./examples/counter

Prerequisites: Go 1.26+ and a C toolchain (Xcode CLT on macOS, build-essential + libgl1-mesa-dev on Linux, MinGW on Windows).

Docs

Full documentation lives at gova.dev (or run npm run dev inside docs-site/ for local browsing). Key sections:

• Getting started
• Core concepts
• State and effects
• Native dialogs
• Platform integration
• CLI

Examples

Every example in examples/ is a runnable program:

go run ./examples/dialogs

Platform support

CLI

The gova CLI ships alongside the framework.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md. Tests are the contract:

go test ./...

Issues, discussions, and PRs all live on GitHub. Security issues? See SECURITY.md.

License

MIT. Gova is built on Fyne (BSD-3), which ships with the module as an internal dependency.